A while ago I imagined finding a little note hidden in a packet of snow peas from Peru. A small note with a cry for help from a vegetable picker in need on the other side of the world. A writer could write an entire novel based on this idea.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one to realize that our food links us directly to fellow earth dwellers thousands of kilometres away. Dutch packaging design agency SOGOOD used the same idea when designing tea packaging for its client Peeze, which markets ecologically produced fair trade coffee and tea.
A new line of tea in different flavours is called Communitea. The packaging of the tea from Sri Lanka comes with little notes from the people who handle the tea in the country of origin. Tea picker Muttih Lingeshwarie writes that raspberries are her favourite fruits, and that she drew the image of the fruit on the package by herself.
Tea cupper Andy Subramaniyam writes: ‘A lemon is a fruit that grows plentifully here, and to depict it I made it into a fantasy animal: a real Sri Lanka new-born chicken, just like our lemon tea, which has Sri Lankan origins too. For this tea we only use real lemon peel for the best taste.’
Maybe Muttih Lingeshwarie and Andy Subramaniyam actually do exist, but their messages reveal too much of a copywriter’s hand to convince us we are really in contact with the producers. The website www.communitea.nl doesn’t change this a bit.
Communitea is a great idea — clever name too — but it deserves a next step to become really convincing. I’d love to have a chat with Muttih or Andy over a cup of cha.
